Was the Pope pushed? An abuse scandal, corruption and the dark intrigue behind Benedict's shock resignation

The room full of people was still in shock at the news of his resignation when Pope Benedict XVI tottered across the marble floor towards a tall, heavy-set man in the red robe and skullcap of a cardinal.

As cameras rolled on Monday in the gilded Sala del Concistoro at the Apostolic Palace in Rome, Benedict grabbed the man by his shoulders, looked deep into his eyes and — struggling to hold back tears — shared a long embrace.

It was a public show of affection to one of the Pope’s most important fratres carissimi or ‘dear brothers’.

Dark intrigue: Benedict's decision to become the first leader of the Catholic Church to step aside since the Middle Ages has left a slew of unanswered questions

It was also a display of respect. For the man was Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who as Dean of the College of Cardinals will organise the coming conclave at the Sistine chapel where 117 cardinals from across the world choose the next pontiff.

Yet in these ancient hallways, things are never entirely as they seem.

Dust may still be settling on Benedict XVI’s unexpected resignation, at the age of 85, but cynical eyes have begun to turn towards his relationship with Sodano the power-broker.

Sodano has lost little time in expressing his ‘sense of loss and almost disbelief’ at Benedict’s decision to quit, telling reporters that Monday’s announcement felt ‘like a lightning bolt in a clear blue sky’. But Vatican insiders smell a rat about those widely reported comments. They point out that, far from being surprised at Benedict’s announcement, Sodano had been told the previous Friday. And far from a ‘sense of loss’, previous form suggests the ambitious cardinal would have been delighted at the news.

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Benedict’s decision to become the first leader of the Catholic Church to step aside since the Middle Ages has left a slew of unanswered questions. In the official statement, the German-born Pope blamed his resignation on advancing years, saying declining health had left him unable to properly lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

‘Having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,’ he said.

An official spokesman later added that Benedict is suffering from a ‘decline in vigour, both of the body and spirit’.

To a degree, that’s probably true. Italian newspapers have revealed Benedict suffered a ‘serious fall’ this year and underwent heart surgery in November to replace a pacemaker fitted after an earlier heart attack.

Dust may still be settling on Benedict XVI's unexpected resignation, at the age of 85, but cynical eyes have begun to turn towards his relationship with Cardinal Angelo Sodano (pictured) - the power-broker

But in a world governed by tradition, serving Popes don’t step aside, no matter how ailing.

Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, served for 27 years, surviving an assassination attempt. After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2001, he suffered severe difficulties speaking and even sitting up. But he carried on until his death in 2005.

The last pope who failed to carry on until the bitter end was Gregory XII, who was forced out in 1415.

The last to go voluntarily was Celestine V, who resigned in 1294.

But if the fact of the Pope’s departure is unusual, its timing looks downright suspicious.

The Vatican claims he’d been considering the move for almost a year, praying intensively as he decided whether to quit.

But if so, why did he recently allow officials to schedule an official tour of Brazil for July?

Why, too, insiders wonder, shortly before Christmas did Benedict promote one of the Vatican’s most glamorous figures, fellow German Georg Ganswein, to Archbishop and the high-profile position of Prefect of his Pontifical Household?

At the time of his appointment, the 56-year-old — who is known as ‘the Black Forest Adonis’ and ‘Gorgeous George’ on account of his good looks — was billed as the perfect right-hand man to protect an ageing Pontiff from the daily grind of Vatican politics.

Benedict promoted Georg Ganswein (pictured) to Archbishop and the high-profile position of Prefect of his Pontifical Household

Ganswein then appeared on the cover of last month’s Italian Vanity Fair, billed as the ‘George Clooney of Catholicism’.

The article pointed out that papal aides are promoted to archbishop when an ailing Pope wishes to create an unofficial ‘gatekeeper’. But if Benedict knew he was about to quit, why appoint Ganswein to this position?

The Pope’s departure also comes at a time of scrutiny over the Vatican’s alleged links to the world of organised crime.

Last summer saw the scandalous trial of Paolo Gabriele, his butler, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing confidential documents from his master’s desk and passing them to a journalist.

The papers were given to Gianluigi Nuzzi, a reporter whose ‘Vatileaks’ scoop alleged corruption at the Vatican Bank, including the laundering of £160 million on behalf of the Mafia.

In the wake of Nuzzi’s revelations, the bank’s president was forced to resign. A replacement is due to be announced in the coming months.

His identity is of great concern to organised criminals, who fear the ‘wrong’ appointee will attempt to wipe clean the tarnished bank’s slate by confessing a raft of previous financial misdeeds.

Benedict was expected to usher in just such a new broom; his successor may not. The fact his departure is good news for the mafia has left many suspicious.

But the most curious figure in the shock resignation is Cardinal Sodano.

The Pope and the cardinal are hardly allies. Indeed, for years they have been regarded as bitter rivals, clashing repeatedly as they each climbed the slippery pole of the hierarchy.

Months after Benedict became Pope, Sodano resigned as the Vatican’s Secretary of State, its most senior political and diplomatic post, after 12 years in the high-profile job. This hardly makes him an obvious candidate for a public papal embrace.

The second source of suspicion is Sodano’s professed surprise at Monday’s news.

Several Vatican insiders, including Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, a top contender to be the next Pope, say Sodano learned of the coming resignation in Benedict’s private quarters the previous Friday.

Not allies: For many years, the Pope (right) and Cardinal Sodano (left) have been regarded as bitter rivals, clashing repeatedly as they each climbed the slippery pole of the hierarchy

If that is the case, then why did the Cardinal describe Benedict’s departure, three days later, as a bolt from the blue?

And what really happened at the Friday meeting? Though held in secret, reports in the Italian press claim there was a heated argument between the men over the fraught question of how the Church should deal with clergy accused of sexual abuse.

In recent years, Benedict has taken a relatively hard line on dealing with paedophile priests, an issue that has damaged the hierarchy’s reputation.

Not only has he apologised publicly to victims, he has also insisted that the Vatican, rather than individual diocese, should be in charge of investigating future abuse complaints, referring them to the police whenever possible.

Sodano takes a different view. The cardinal has been reluctant to proceed with investigations into suspect priests over the years, and famously used a prayer during Easter Mass in 2010 to describe the complaints of victims of abuse as ‘petty gossip’.

He has clashed with Benedict over this issue several times over the years. In 1995, they fell out over how to deal with Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who resigned as Archbishop of Vienna after being accused of molesting young men.

While it seems Sodano had several reasons to seek the Pope's resignation, that doesn't mean he had the ability to execute such an audacious plot

Benedict advised the then Pope, John Paul II, to issue an apology over the appalling allegations, which were later proven. Sodano, as the Vatican’s Secretary of State, chose to over-rule him.

Then, in 1998, Sodano instructed Benedict — then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — to drop an investigation into multiple counts of abuse by Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of a holy order called The Legionaries of Christ. In a plot twist worthy of a Dan Brown novel, a Catholic journal uncovered evidence that Sodano had issued the order after receiving $15,000 from the order for being its ‘cheerleader’.

Benedict waited eight years for revenge. In 2006, he removed Maciel — later revealed to have fathered several children by different women — from his post. Sodano’s resignation from Vatican Secretary of State came soon afterwards.

Yet while it seems Sodano had several reasons to seek the Pope’s resignation, that doesn’t necessarily mean he had the ability to execute such an audacious plot.

A hostile cardinal seeking to bring down a Pope would have to unearth a catastrophically devastating scandal from his past.

With Benedict’s childhood in the Hitler Youth and long career in a Church ridden with sex abuse allegations, there are avenues for attack. But eight years of scrutiny from the media has left little mud sticking to him.

There is a dubious incident from 1980, when as Archbishop of Munich he transferred a paedophile priest to another parish. And there have been complaints that during the Eighties and Nineties, in his role as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he ignored complaints of abuse.

Getting the Pope to resign would have taken something more damning. Did Sodano stumble on a scandal? It seems unlikely.

A more plausible explanation is perhaps that constant exposure to Vatican politics had left the monkish and cerebral Benedict tired and desperate to find an escape.

‘Maybe an unpleasant meeting with Sodano pushed him over the edge,’ says a veteran insider. ‘The Vatileaks scandal showed the place to be completely dysfunctional. It’s been that way throughout history.’

As for Sodano, he’s no doubt hoping one piece of Vatican history repeats itself. The last time a College of Cardinals chose a new Pope was in 2005 and Benedict was Dean of the College of Cardinals. This time, of course, the dean is none other than Cardinal Angelo Sodano.